1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to CCD imager cameras and, more particularly, to a system for compensating for defects in the CCD.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Solid state imagers, such as CCDs, in the past, have normally been found to have numerous faults which have appeared as black and/or white dots or lines on a TV monitor. These defects were objectionable and it was highly desirable that such signals be removed from the TV monitor by removing the signals emanating from the CCD indicative thereof prior to the time such signals reached the TV monitor circuitry for display thereon. This was very difficult in the prior art because of the very large number of such defects encountered in almost every CCD sampled. It is apparent that, if these defects can be electronically removed, as far as cosmetic appearance is concerned, the yield of usable CCDs can be considerably increased. The prior art attempts to provide such improvements in cosmetic appearance have involved automatically correcting for such defects as suggested by Skaggs et al., Ser. No. 677,320, filed Dec. 3, 1984, which is incorporated herein by reference. However these methods also affected the data without defect for spatial frequencies near the limiting Nyquist frequency limits. Such defect minimizing or correcting methods have therefore not found great acceptability in the art. However, with the improvements in processing techniques, CCDs are presently available wherein a great percentage of those produced have only a few defects. Accordingly, it is now possible to provide CCDs wherein defects can be easily located and compensation therefore provided using programmable techniques.